248 56 55 54 53 52 51 50 49 48 47 46 45 44 43 42 41 40 39 38 37 36 35 34 33 32 31 30 29 28 27 26 25 24 23 22 21 20 19 18 17 16 15 14 13 12 11 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 Gratitude is held in high esteem by virtually everyone, at all times, in all places. From ancient religious scriptures through modern social sci- ence research, gratitude is advanced as a desir- able human characteristic with the capacity for making life better for oneself and for others. Though gratitude is associated with pleasantness and highly desirable life outcomes, it is certainly not an easy or automatic response to life situa- tions. Resentment and entitlement often seem to come naturally. Individual personality flaws such as neuroticism or narcissism make it difficult to recognize the positive contributions of others. The very fact that gratitude is a virtue suggests that it must be deliberately cultivated. Like any virtue, it must be taught, or at least modeled, and practiced regularly, until it becomes, in an Aristotelian sense, a habit of character. A grateful person is one who is prone to react to the good- ness of others in a benevolent and receptive fashion, reciprocating kindness when opportuni- ties arise. The grateful person has been able to overcome tendencies to take things for granted, to feel entitled to the benefits they have received, and to take sole credit for all of their advantages in life. They are able to gladly recognize the contributions that others have made to their well-being. Further, they are able to discern when it is appropriate to express gratitude and are not overly concerned with exacting gratitude from those whom they benefit. What have we learned about gratitude and the grateful personality? First, a definition: Gratitude is an acknowledgment that we have received something of value from others. It arises from a posture of openness to others, where we are able to gladly recognize their benevolence. Societies through the ages have long extolled the benefits of gratitude, and classical writings have deemed it the “greatest of the virtues.” But only recently has psychological theory and research on grati- tude begun to catch up with philosophical com- mendations. In the first part of this chapter, we review research on gratitude and positive human functioning. First, we briefly consider the research on gratitude and well-being. After a consideration of this evidence, we explore the mechanisms by which gratitude enhances well- being. We consider several explanations and evaluate the empirical evidence for each. In the latter part of the chapter, we establish an agenda for the future by considering some ways in 16 Why Gratitude Enhances Well-Being: What We Know, What We Need to Know Robert A. Emmons and Anjali Mishra 16_Sheldon_Chapter-16.indd 248 16_Sheldon_Chapter-16.indd 248 10/8/2010 12:11:14 PM 10/8/2010 12:11:14 PM OUP UNCORRECTED PROOF – FIRST-PROOF, 08/10/2010, GLYPH
Transcript
248
56
55
54
53
52
51
50
49
48
47
46
45
44
43
42
41
40
39
38
37
36
35
34
33
32
31
30
29
28
27
26
25
24
23
22
21
20
19
18
17
16
15
14
13
12
11
10
9
8
7
6
5
4
3
2
1
Gratitude is held in high esteem by virtually everyone, at all times, in all places. From ancient religious scriptures through modern social sci-ence research, gratitude is advanced as a desir-able human characteristic with the capacity for making life better for oneself and for others. Though gratitude is associated with pleasantness and highly desirable life outcomes, it is certainly not an easy or automatic response to life situa-tions. Resentment and entitlement often seem to come naturally. Individual personality fl aws such as neuroticism or narcissism make it diffi cult to recognize the positive contributions of others. The very fact that gratitude is a virtue suggests that it must be deliberately cultivated. Like any virtue, it must be taught, or at least modeled, and practiced regularly, until it becomes, in an Aristotelian sense, a habit of character. A grateful person is one who is prone to react to the good-ness of others in a benevolent and receptive fashion, reciprocating kindness when opportuni-ties arise. The grateful person has been able to overcome tendencies to take things for granted, to feel entitled to the benefi ts they have received, and to take sole credit for all of their advantages in life. They are able to gladly recognize the
contributions that others have made to their well-being. Further, they are able to discern when it is appropriate to express gratitude and are not overly concerned with exacting gratitude from those whom they benefi t.
What have we learned about gratitude and the grateful personality? First, a defi nition: Gratitude is an acknowledgment that we have received something of value from others. It arises from a posture of openness to others, where we are able to gladly recognize their benevolence. Societies through the ages have long extolled the benefi ts of gratitude, and classical writings have deemed it the “greatest of the virtues.” But only recently has psychological theory and research on grati-tude begun to catch up with philosophical com-mendations. In the fi rst part of this chapter, we review research on gratitude and positive human functioning. First, we briefl y consider the research on gratitude and well-being. After a consideration of this evidence, we explore the mechanisms by which gratitude enhances well-being. We consider several explanations and evaluate the empirical evidence for each. In the latter part of the chapter, we establish an agenda for the future by considering some ways in
16
Why Gratitude Enhances Well-Being: What We Know, What We Need to Know
1 which the scientifi c fi eld of gratitude can be advanced.
Gratitude and Well-Being: Taking Stock
Gratitude is foundational to well-being and mental health throughout the lifespan. From childhood to old age, accumulating evidence documents the wide array of psychological, physical, and relational benefi ts associated with gratitude. In the past few years, there has been an accumulation of scientifi c evidence showing the contribution of gratitude to psychological and social well-being (Emmons & McCullough, 2003 ; McCullough, Kilpatrick, Emmons, & Larson, 2001 ; Wood, Froh, & Geraghty, 2010 ). Gratitude has been shown to contribute to not only an increase in positive affect and other desirable life outcomes but also to a decrease in negative affect and problematic functioning as demonstrated in diverse samples such as among patients with neuromuscular disease, college students, hypertensives, and early adolescents (Emmons & McCullough, 2003 ; Froh, Sefi ck, & Emmons, 2008 ; Shipon, 2007 ).
Based on Rosenberg’s ( 1998 ) hierarchical levels of affective experience, gratitude has been identifi ed as a trait, emotion, and mood. The grateful disposition can be defi ned as a stable affective trait that would lower the threshold of experiencing gratitude. As an emotion, gratitude can be understood as an acute, intense, and rela-tively brief psychophysiological reaction to being the recipient of a benefi t from an other. Lastly, as a stable mood, gratitude has also been identifi ed to have a subtle, broad, and longer-duration impact on consciousness (McCullough, Tsang, & Emmons, 2004 ). Both state and dispositional gratitude have been shown to enhance overall psychological, social, and physical well-being. Gratitude promotes optimal functioning at mul-tiple levels of analysis — biological, experiential, personal, relational, familial, institutional, and even cultural (Emmons & McCullough, 2004 ).
Two main measures have been administered to assess dispositional gratitude: the six-item Gratitude Questionnaire (GQ; McCullough, Emmons, & Tsang, 2002 ), and the 44-item Gratitude Resentment and Appreciation Test or the GRAT (Watkins, Grimm, & Hailu, 1998 ). The GQ-6 measures dispositional gratitude as a generalized tendency to recognize and emotion-ally respond with thankfulness, after attributing benefi ts received to an external moral agent
(Emmons, McCullough, & Tsang, 2003 ). The 44-item GRAT form measures three dimensions of gratitude: resentment, simple appreciation, and appreciation of others (Watkins et al., 1998 ). Beyond these scales to assess gratitude, other measures include personal interviews (Liamputtong, Yimyam, Parisunyakul, Baosoung, & Sansiriphun, 2004 ), rating scales (Saucier & Goldberg, 1998 ), and other self-report measures such as free response (Sommers & Kosmitzki, 1988 ) and personal narratives (Kashdan, Mishra, Breen, & Froh, 2009 ).
Dispositional gratitude has been shown to uniquely and incrementally contribute to subjec-tive well-being (McCullough et al., 2004 ; Watkins, Woodward, Stone, & Kolts, 2003 ; Wood, Joseph, & Maltby, 2008 ) and to benefi ts above and beyond general positive affect (Bartlett & DeSteno, 2006 ). Dispositional gratitude has also been found to be positively associated with proso-cial traits such as empathy, forgiveness, and will-ingness to help others (McCullough et al., 2002 ). People who rate themselves as having a grateful disposition perceived themselves as having more prosocial characteristics, expressed by their empa-thetic behavior, and emotional support for friends within the last month. Similar associations have been found between state gratitude and social well-being (Emmons & McCullough, 2003 ).
While gratitude has been studied as trait, it has also been studied as a state — feeling grateful and equivalent states (appreciation, thankfulness) at the moment. State gratitude has been experi-mentally activated through the self-guided exer-cise of journaling. In the fi rst study examining the benefi ts of experimentally induced grateful thoughts on psychological well-being in daily life, a gratitude induction was compared to a hassles and a neutral life events condition (Emmons & McCullough, 2003 ). The cultivation of grateful affect through daily and weekly jour-naling led to overall improved well-being, including fewer health complaints and a more positive outlook toward life. Participants in the gratitude condition also reported more exercise and appraised their life more positively com-pared to participants in the hassles and neutral conditions. Furthermore, in a study examining the contribution of gratitude in daily mood over 21 days, gratitude was strongly associated with spiritual transcendence and other positive affec-tive traits (e.g., extraversion) (McCullough et al., 2004 ). In the past few years, a number of labora-tory and research-based intervention studies have also been examining the positive impact of
1 gratitude-induced activities (e.g., the gratitude visit, gratitude letter) on psychological well-being, including happiness, depression, and mate-rialism (Bono, Emmons, & McCullough, 2004 ; Lyubomirsky, Sheldon, & Schkade, 2005 ; McCullough et al., 2004 ; Seligman, Steen, Park, & Peterson; 2005 ; Watkins, 2000 ).
Given the emerging strong association between gratitude and well-being, an important step becomes exploring the reasons for this relationship. What are the mechanisms respon-sible for why gratitude promotes well-being? A number of possible explanations have been suggested; however, not all of them have been fully investigated. In the next section, we exam-ine several explanations for the relation between gratitude and well-being, some of which stem from new research from our laboratory that is relevant to these hypotheses.
Hypothesis 1: Gratitude Facilitates Coping with Stress
Pondering the circumstances in one’s life for which one is grateful appears to be a common way of coping with both acute and chronic stress-ful life events. Our fi rst hypothesis is that grati-tude improves well-being by providing useful coping skills for dealing with losses. These include building a supply of more positive thoughts, increasing the focus on benefi ts in life and on others, and reducing the maladaptive focus on losses (Fredrickson, 2004 ; Watkins, 2000 ). For example, gratitude has been associated with distinct coping styles of seeking social support, positive reframing, approach-oriented problem solving, and active coping (Wood, Joseph, & Linley, 2007 ). The coping styles linked with gratitude might be based on the recognition of benefi ts, stronger social bonds, prosocial moti-vation, and the evolutionary adaptation of grati-tude as an emotion for regulating reciprocal altruism (McCullough et al., 2001 ; McCullough, Kimeldorf, & Cohen, 2008 ; Trivers, 1971 ). In the past few years there has been growing empirical evidence for gratitude’s association with coping and post-traumatic growth (Peterson, Park, Pole, D’Andrea, & Seligman, 2008 ).
One of the fi rst studies examining the benefi ts of psychological strengths on well-being in combat veterans found that, compared to veter-ans with Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), veterans without PTSD reported more disposi-tional gratitude on the GQ-6 (Kashdan, Uswatte, & Julian, 2006 ). Gratitude also emerged as one of
the strongest themes for quality of life (toward the donor, their families, and the renal team) in a sample of kidney transplant recipients, followed by long-lasting psychosocial effects on the recip-ients (Orr, Willis, Holmes, Britton, & Orr, 2007 ). In a prospective study examining college stu-dents in the aftermath of the September 11 ter-rorist attacks, gratitude emerged as one of the primary themes and contributed to resilience and post-crisis coping (Fredrickson, Tugade, Waugh, & Larkin, 2003 ). Lastly, a recent study including undergraduate women with trauma history showed strong associations between gratitude (measured by a four-item post-trauma gratitude scale including the items “fortunate,” “grateful,” “appreciated life,” and “relieved”) and emotional growth ( r = .43, p < .001). Most importantly, gratitude after trauma was nega-tively associated with PTSD symptom levels ( r = –.18, p < .05) (Vernon, Dillon, & Steiner, 2009 ). Therefore, the evidence strongly supports the supposition that gratitude promotes adaptive coping and personal growth.
Hypothesis 2: Gratitude Reduces Toxic Emotions Resulting from Self and Social Comparisons
Another possible explanation for the relation between gratitude and well-being is that grateful individuals are less likely to engage in upward social comparisons that can result in envy or resentment, or self-comparisons with alternative outcomes in one’s own life that can result in regret. Either type of these invidious compari-sons can cause people to feel that they lack some-thing important that either others have or that they desire for themselves. Envy is a negative emotional state characterized by resentment, inferiority, longing, and frustration about other people’s material and non-material successes (Parrott & Smith, 1993 ). Considerable research has shown that envy creates unhappiness and is associated with a host of negative mental health indicators (Smith & Kim, 2007 ). As gratitude is a focus on the benevolence of others, it is incom-patible with envy and resentment, as the grateful person appreciates positive qualities in others and is able to feel happy over the good fortune that happens to others (Smith, Turner, Leach, Garonzik, Urch-Druskat, & Weston, 1996 ). Grateful people, who tend to focus on the posi-tive contributions of others to their well-being, probably devote less attention to comparing their outcomes with those of other people and thus
1 experience less envy as a result. Using Smith, Parrott, Diener, Hoyle, & Kim’s ( 1999 ) measure of dispositional envy and the envy subscale of Belk’s materialism scale (Ger & Belk, 1996 McCullough et al., 2002 ) reported moderate neg-ative correlations (ranging from –.34 to –.40) between gratitude and envy. Furthermore, the correlations between trait gratitude and envy remained signifi cant after controlling for posi-tive affect, negative affect, and agreeableness. Grateful people do experience less frustration and resentment over the achievements and pos-sessions of other people, and the overlap between gratitude and envy is not produced by their common bond with trait affect.
Regret is a counterfactual emotion produced by perceptions of what might have been. In regret, some action, event, or state of affairs is construed as “unfortunate” and contrasted with some more propitious alternative that “might have been” (Roberts, 2004 ). In that it is a form of welling on the negative, regret generates related unpleasant states of anxiety, unhappiness, and even depression (Isenberg, 2008 ; Landman, 1993 ). There is no empirical evidence that directly tests the hypothesized linkage between regret and gratitude, though the opposing causal attributions that give rise to gratitude versus regret have been well-established (Weiner, 2007 ). It is likely that the dispositionally grateful have a fi rewall of protection against incapacitating regrets because they are inclined to dwell on the favorable, rather than the regrettable, in life (Roberts, 2004 ). By appreciating the gifts of the moment, gratitude offers freedom from past regrets. While a promising hypothesis, more research is needed before we can draw defi nitive conclusions concerning this hypothesis.
Gratitude and materialism represent opposing motivational goals. Gratitude may aid well-being by motivating people to fulfi ll basic needs of per-sonal growth, relationships, and community — motives that are incompatible with materialism (Polak & McCullough, 2006 ). As a route to the bolstering of well-being, gratitude may block materialistic pursuits. Materialism is damaging to subjective well-being. Materialistic adults tend to exhibit life dissatisfaction (Richins & Dawson, 1992 ); unhappiness (Belk, 1985 ; Kasser & Kanner, 2004 ); low self-esteem (Kasser, 2003 ); less concern with the welfare of others
(Sheldon & Kasser, 1995 ); less relatedness, autonomy, competence, and meaning in life (Kashdan & Breen, 2007 ); and higher levels of depressive symptoms (Kasser & Ryan, 1993 ) and envy (Belk, 1985 ). Materialistic adults are less satisfi ed with their standards of living, family lives, and the amount of fun and enjoyment they experience (Richins & Dawson, 1992 ).
Gratitude is most closely related to the values of benevolence , an orientation characterized by “the preservation and enhancement of the wel-fare of people with whom one is in frequent per-sonal contact” (Bilsky & Schwartz, 1994 , p. 167) and universalism, defi ned as “understanding, appreciation, tolerance, and protection for the welfare of all people and for nature” (Bilsky & Schwartz, 1994 , p. 167). Furthermore, in the Values-in-Action taxonomy of human strengths (Peterson & Seligman, 2004 ), gratitude is one of the fi ve strengths that falls under the broader virtue of transcendence . These value orientations are diametrically opposed to power (“social status and prestige, control or dominance over people and resources”) (p. 167) and hedonism (pleasure and sensuous gratifi cation for oneself”) (p. 167), which likely are the two values in this theory most aligned with materialism. Values theory would therefore predict a negative correlation between gratitude and materialism on the grounds that they represent opposing value systems.
Evidence suggests that gratitude can reduce the pernicious effects of materialism on well-being. Grateful people report themselves as being less materialistic and are less likely to defi ne per-sonal success in terms of material accomplish-ments and possessions (McCullough et al., 2002 ). In particular, grateful people report being more willing to part with their possessions, more gen-erous with them, less envious of the material wealth of others, less committed to the idea that material wealth is linked with success in life, and less convinced of the idea that material wealth brings happiness. Using structural equation modeling, Froh, Emmons, Card, Bono, & Wilson (in press) found that gratitude mediates the rela-tion between materialism and well-being. Apparently, material success is not a very impor-tant factor in the happiness of highly grateful people, so this hypothesis has received consider-able support.
Hypothesis 4: Gratitude Improves Self-Esteem
Self-esteem has emerged as a powerful correlate of happiness (e.g., Denny & Steiner, 2009 ;
1 Lyubomirsky, Tkach, & DiMatteo, 2006 ; Walker & Schimmack, 2008 ). Gratitude might be impor-tant because focusing on receiving benefi ts from benefactors might enhance self-esteem and self-respect. This hypothesis has not been exten-sively tested, but the data that do exist are supportive. For example, grateful youth report high levels of self-esteem (Froh, Wajsblat, & Ubertini, 2008 ). They also report high levels of self-satisfaction concurrently (Froh et al., 2008 , 2008; Froh, Yurkewicz, & Kashdan ( 2009 ) and three and six months later (Froh et al., 2008 ). Grateful people, in focusing on how their lives are supported and sustained by others, might feel more secure and are therefore less likely to seek material goods to strengthen their self-image. Grateful people may also have more stable self-esteem that is less contingent upon transient success and failure experiences, con-tributing to their ability to cope with stress, as discussed in Hypothesis 1. We do not yet know, however, the direction of the relation. It may be that high self-esteem leads to more feel-ings of gratitude because it makes it more likely that the person will respond positively to the benevolence of others. Conversely, it may be that feelings of gratitude produce more positive self-construals. Future research will have to decide this sequence.
Hypothesis 5: Gratitude Enhances Accessibility to Positive Memories
Gratitude has also been shown to contribute to well-being by boosting the retrieval of positive autobiographical memories. Grateful people are characterized by a positive memory bias (Watkins, Grimm, & Kolts, 2004 ). This positivity bias extends to both intentional and intrusive positive memories. These fi ndings were reliably replicated in a subsequent study by the authors after controlling for depression. In a more recent study by Watkins, Cruz, Holben, & Kolts ( 2008 ), the reappraising benefi t of gratitude on memory was shown to promote successful closure of unpleasant open memories, ultimately contrib-uting to happiness. Therefore, gratitude enhances the retrievability of positive experiences by increasing elaboration of positive information. The positive impact of gratitude on memory was further confi rmed in a study by Watkins et al. ( 2008 ). The grateful reappraisal of upsetting memories was shown to promote better emo-tional processing and closure of the upsetting open memories.
Future research could examine the infl uence of gratitude on the construction of self-construals. These construals might subsequently impact appraisals of autobiographical memories. Accord-ing to Ross ( 1989 ), implicit theories of personal attributes can infl uence the retrieval of self- construal and facilitate biased recall. Furthermore, the perception of self can change (or remain rela-tively stable) over time (Ross, 1989 ). The role of gratitude in infl uencing construal of life histo-ries might be tested both for state and trait grat-itude. People high on trait gratitude may be better able to retrieve more positive personal life experiences compared to less grateful individu-als. The effect of experimentally induced grati-tude on the quality of autobiographical memories (e.g., positive-negative valence of the memories, perception of negative life events) could also be investigated.
Hypothesis 6: Gratitude Builds Social Resources
Gratitude may contribute to overall well-being by enhancing social relationships. Gratitude has been linked in a variety of ways to positive inter-personal functioning. Gratitude facilitates the building of social resources by broadening the thought action repertoire (i.e., via initiation of friendships or consideration of a wide range of strategies by the benefi ciary as a form of repay-ment) (Fredrickson, 2004 , pp. 150). Moreover, besides building new bonds, gratitude also helps strengthen and maintain existing relationships (Algoe, Haidt, & Gable, 2008 ) and fosters trust (Gino & Schweitzer, 2008 ). Grateful people pos-sess a number of resources that make them desirable friends and romantic partners. They are extraverted, agreeable, empathic, emotion-ally stable, forgiving, trusting, and generous (McCullough et. al, 2002 ; Wood et al., 2008 ). Further, gratitude is a strength of character that is highly desired in romantic partners (Steen, Kachorek, & Peterson, 2003 ).
From an attachment perspective, gratitude has been shown to promote social bonds since it is closely associated with attachment security. In a sample of Israeli undergraduates, attachment security uniquely contributed to the grateful disposition over and beyond the association of attachment security with self-esteem or trust (Mikulincer, Shaver, & Slav, 2006 ). In a subse-quent study the link between trait gratitude and attachment security was examined in context of new marital relationships. For both husband and
1 wife, the perceived positive behavior of the part-ner was strongly associated with greater grati-tude toward the partner on a particular day (Mikulincer et al., 2006 , pp. 203). The link is not limited to newlyweds. In a sample of older adults, greater social support from adult children was found to be related with a higher sense of grati-tude (Dahua, Yan, & Liqing, 2004 ).
The social benefi ts of gratitude can also be construed in terms of the affect theory of social exchange proposed by Lawler ( 2001 ). This theory proposes that positive emotions generated by social exchange partners lead to social cohesion and strengthening of social networks. Therefore, by promoting prosocial behavior, building social resources, fostering trust, attachment security, and social exchange, gratitude is a vital interper-sonal emotion, the absence of which undermines social harmony.
Hypothesis 7: Gratitude Motivates Moral Behavior
Gratitude is an essential part of creating and sustaining positive social relations. One way that gratitude sustains personal relationships is that it motivates moral behavior — action that is undertaken in order to benefi t another. McCullough et al. ( 2001 ) proposed that gratitude possesses three psychological features that are relevant to processing and responding to proso-cial behavior: It is a benefi t detector as well as both a reinforcer and motivator of prosocial behavior. In this functional account, gratitude is more than a pleasant feeling. Gratitude is also motivating and energizing. It is a positive state of mind that gives rise to the “passing on of the gift” through positive action. As such, gratitude serves as a key link in the dynamic between receiving and giving. While a response to kind-nesses received, gratitude drives future benevo-lent actions on the part of the recipient. In the language of evolutionary dynamics, gratitude leads to “upstream reciprocity” (Nowak & Roch, 2007 ), the passing on of a benefi t to a person uninvolved in the initial exchange. Part of grati-tude’s magnetic appeal lies in its power to evoke a focus by the recipient on the benevolence of others, thereby ensuring a perception that kind-ness has been offered, and its benefi cial conse-quences that frequently are the motive to respond favorably toward another. The idea that the capacity to receive and be grateful fosters the desire to return goodness is theoretically com-pelling and empirically viable.
Recent experimental evidence indicates that gratitude is a unique facilitator of reciprocity (Bartlett & DeSteno, 2006 ; Watkins, Schneer, Ovnicek & Kolts, 2006 ). After appraising the evi-dence that gratitude fosters moral behavior, McCullough, Kimeldorf, and Cohen ( 2008 ) pro-pose that gratitude evolved to facilitate social exchange. Compelling evidence suggests that gratitude evolved to stimulate not only direct reciprocal altruism but also upstream reciprocity (Nowak & Roch, 2007 ).
Hypothesis 8: Grateful People Are Spiritually Minded
Several studies have found a relationship between religion, spirituality, and gratitude (Adler & Fagley, 2005 ; Emmons & Kneezel, 2005 ; McCullough et al., 2002 ; Watkins et al., 2003 ). People with stronger dispositions toward grati-tude tend to be more spiritually and religiously minded. Not only do they score higher on mea-sures of traditional religiousness, but they also scored higher on non-sectarian measures of spir-ituality that assess spiritual experiences (e.g., sense of contact with a divine power) and senti-ments (e.g., beliefs that all living things are interconnected) independent of specifi c theologi-cal orientation. All measures of public and pri-vate religiousness in the Emmons and Kneezel ( 2005 ) study were signifi cantly associated with both dispositional gratitude and grateful feelings assessed on a daily basis. Although these correla-tions were not large (ranging from r = .28 to r = .52), they suggest that spiritually or reli-giously inclined people have a stronger disposi-tion to experience gratitude than do their less spiritual/religious counterparts. Research is also beginning to examine gratitude toward God. Krause ( 2006 ) found that gratitude felt toward God reduced the effect of stress on health in late-life adults and deteriorated neighborhood. The stress-buffering effect of theocentric gratitude was more pronounced among the women com-pared to the men in Krause’s ( 2006 ) study.
Many world religions commend gratitude as a desirable human trait (see Carman & Streng, 1989 ; Emmons & Crumpler, 2000 ), which may cause spiritual or religious people to adopt a grateful outlook. Religion also provides texts, teachings, and traditions that encourage grati-tude. When contemplating a positive circum-stance that cannot be attributed to intentional human effort, such as a miraculous healing or the gift of life itself, spiritually inclined people
1 may attribute these positive outcomes to a non-human agent (viz., God or a higher power) and thus experience more gratitude. Third, spiritu-ally inclined people also tend to attribute posi-tive outcomes to God’s intervention, but not negative ones (Lupfer, De Paola, Brock, & Clement, 1994 ; Lupfer, Tolliver, & Jackson, 1996 ). As a result, many positive life events that are not due to the actions of another person (e.g., pleas-ant weather, avoiding an automobile accident) may be perceived as occasions for gratitude to God, although negative events (e.g., a long winter, an automobile accident) would likely not be attributed to God. This attributional style, then, is likely to magnify the positive emotional effects of pleasant life events.
The possession of and progression toward impor-tant life goals are essential for long-term well-being (Emmons, 1999 ). Goal attainment is a major benchmark for the experience of well-being. Quality of life therapy (Frisch, 2006 ) advocates the importance of revising goals, stan-dards, and priorities as a strategy for boosting life happiness and satisfaction. Yet goal striving and gratitude or the grateful disposition have not been explicitly linked. In one experimental study on gratitude and well-being, we asked partici-pants at the beginning of the gratitude journal-ing study to provide a short list of goals they wished to accomplish over the next two months. As these were students, most goals fell into the interpersonal or academic domains. Participants in the gratitude condition, relative to the control and hassles conditions, reported making more progress toward their goals over the 10-week period. The results of this study stand in strong opposition to an empirically undocumented but widely held assumption that gratitude pro-motes passivity and complacency. On the con-trary, gratitude enhances effortful goal striving. Much more future research could examine the goal correlates of gratitude, as well as grateful affect as an emotional regulator of goal-directed action.
Hypothesis 10: Gratitude Promotes Physical Health
Gratitude is a mindful awareness of the benefi ts in one’s life. Dwelling on goodness may promote more effi cient physical functioning, through either
inhibiting unhealthy attitudes and emotions or facilitating more health-promoting inner states. A small number of studies have reported physi-cal health benefi ts of gratitude, and these rela-tions have been largely independent of trait negative affect (Wood, Joseph, Lloyd, & Atkins, 2008 ). Gratitude interventions have been shown to reduce the bodily complaints, increase sleep duration and effi ciency, and promote exercise (Emmons & McCullough, 2003 ; Wood et al., 2008 ). Experimental research suggests that dis-crete experiences of gratitude and appreciation may cause increases in parasympathetic myocar-dial control (McCraty & Childre, 2004 ), lower systolic blood pressure (Shipon, 2007 ), as well as improvements in more molar aspects of physical health such as everyday symptoms and physi-cian visits (Emmons & McCullough, 2003 ). McCraty and colleagues found that appreciation increased parasympathetic activity, a change thought to be benefi cial in controlling stress and hypertension, as well as “coherence” or entrain-ment across various autonomic response chan-nels. Therefore, there might be some direct physiological benefi ts to frequently experiencing grateful emotions. This line of research con-ducted by McCraty demonstrates a link between positive emotions and increased physiological effi ciency, which may partly explain the growing number of correlations documented between positive emotions, improved health, and increased longevity.
Moving Forward: Future Directions
As the evidence we reviewed earlier in the chap-ter indicates, gratitude interventions in adults consistently produce positive benefi ts, many of which appear to endure over reasonably lengthy periods of time. Gratitude interventions lead to greater gratitude, life satisfaction, optimism, prosocial behavior (Emmons & McCullough, 2003 ), positive affect (Emmons & McCullough, 2003 ; Watkins et al., 2003 , Study 4), and well-being (Lyubomirsky et al., 2005 ; Seligman et al., 2005 ), as well as decreased negative affect (Emmons & McCullough, 2003 ; Seligman et al., 2005 ; Watkins et al., 2003 , Study 3) compared with controls for up to six months. Similar fi ndings, over shorter follow-up periods, have been documented in youth (Froh et al., 2008 ). Despite these encouraging results, much remains unknown. We have several suggestions for future research involving gratitude interventions.
1 Mechanisms. What are the active ingredients in gratitude interventions? It is not known whether the effects of these activities are rela-tively specifi c (e.g., increases in happiness alone) or are more general (e.g., increases in perceived physical health and decreases in negative mood). In addition, no research has attempted to exam-ine the effects of these activities in the context of participants’ levels of dispositional gratitude, an established individual difference that may mod-ulate the positive effects of activities aimed at increasing gratitude in one’s life (McCullough et al., 2002 ). The active ingredients may relate to processes of refl ecting on things for which one is grateful, or recording these in some way, or expressing them. Until it is known which of these is essential, we cannot state why these exercises work and it is diffi cult to make informed recommendations about how they might be used. Future research must employ increasingly sophisticated designs using statistical tests of mediating and moderating effects.
Comparison groups . What is the most appro-priate condition to contrast with gratitude? Nearly one-half of the studies that have been published to date found support for gratitude interventions when making contrasts with tech-niques that induce negative affect (e.g., record your daily hassles). Gratitude interventions have shown limited benefi ts, if any, over control con-ditions. Thus, there is a need to better understand whether gratitude interventions are beyond a control condition and if there exists a subset of people who benefi t. Perhaps gratitude interven-tions are differentially effective for groups of people with varying backgrounds. Sample char-acteristics themselves might show differences. People who are actively seeking positive psy-chology interventions may have greater expecta-tions for their effi cacy compared to college students participating for extra credit or to fulfi ll a course requirement.
Trait moderators . A moderating effect might be found if pre-existing trait characteristics of people affect their ability to profi t from gratitude interventions. Several dispositional factors may moderate the effectiveness of gratitude interven-tions. Of these, trait affect and dispositional grat-itude are obvious candidates for consideration. It seems a reasonable prediction that persons high in positive affect (PA) may have reached an “emotional ceiling” and thus are less susceptible to experiencing gains in well-being. People lower in PA, however, may need more positive events — like expressing gratitude to a benefactor — to
“catch up” to the positive experiences of their peers. Froh, Kashdan, Ozimkowski, and Miller ( 2009 ) examined whether individuals differences in positive affective style moderated the effects of a gratitude intervention where youth were instructed to write a letter to someone to whom they were grateful and deliver it to them in person. Eighty-nine children and adolescents were ran-domly assigned to the gratitude intervention or a control condition. Findings indicated that youth low in PA in the gratitude condition, compared with youth writing about daily events, reported greater gratitude and PA at post-treatment and greater PA at the two-month follow-up. Children and adolescents low in PA in the gratitude condi-tion, compared with the control group, reported more gratitude and PA at two later time points, at three-week and two-month follow-ups. This is an important study because it is the fi rst known randomized controlled trial of a gratitude inter-vention study in children and adolescents and the fi rst paper to reinterpret the gratitude inter-vention literature arguing to carefully consider controls groups when concluding the effi cacy of gratitude interventions. Furthermore, when con-sidering both youth and adult populations, it is also the fi rst known attempt at investigating positive affect as a moderator.
Then there is dispositional gratitude. Can we expect gratitude inductions to be more effective in increasing the well-being of grateful individu-als or less grateful persons? Grateful individuals would be more susceptible to recognizing when others are being kind to them, and more open to perceiving benefi ts more generally. One could even postulate a gratitude schema (Wood et. al, 2008 ) as an interpretive bias on the part of dispo-sitionally grateful individuals prone to making benevolent appraisals. Alternatively, gratitude interventions might also be more effi cacious for individuals low on trait gratitude since they may have more room for improvement on the grati-tude dimension. No published studies have examined dispositional gratitude as a moderator of state gratitude interventions.
Trait gratitude might also interact with trait affect. Froh et al. ( 2009 ) found that, compared to the control group, individuals in the gratitude group who were low on positive affect benefi ted the most from the gratitude intervention. Given the recent evidence on the contribution of posi-tive affect as a moderator, it might also be rea-sonable to examine the possibility of a curvilinear relationship between trait gratitude and well-being. For example, individuals at the extreme
1 ends of the gratitude distribution might extract the least benefi ts from gratitude interventions.
The effect of instructional set. The instruc-tions that participants in the gratitude condition are given appear to be essential. The counting blessings gratitude intervention guides partici-pants to refl ect on and record benefi ts in their lives. Participants generally focus on the pres-ence of good things in their lives that they cur-rently enjoy. Yet a recent study found that people’s affective states improve more after mentally subtracting positive events from their lives than after thinking about the presence of those events (Koo, Algoe, Wilson & Gilbert, 2008 ). People wrote about why a positive event might never have happened and why it was sur-prising or why it was certain to be part of their lives and was not at all surprising. The results showed that the way in which people think about positive life events is critical, namely whether they think about the presence of the events (e.g., “I’m grateful that I was in Professor Wiseman’s class”) or the absence of the events (e.g., “imag-ine I had never met Professor Wiseman!”). The latter impacted positive affect more than did the former. Inasmuch as most previous studies adopted the former approach, asking participants to think about the presence of positive events, the effects of gratitude on well-being may well have been underestimated. Koo et. al adduce that thinking about how events might have not hap-pened triggers surprise, and it is surprise that amplifi es the event’s positivity. Along these lines, another recent study (Bar-Anan, Wilson, & Gilbert, 2009 ) found that the uncertainty of an event intensifi es felt reaction, such that outcomes that are uncertain produce greater emotional reactions. Another recent study found that focus-ing on an experience’s ending could enhance one’s present evaluation of it (Kurtz, 2008 ). Future gratitude interventions could capitalize on these three studies by giving participants explicit instructions to include in their journals events or circumstances that might not have happened, have turned out otherwise, where the initial outcome may have been uncertain, or increasing an awareness that the experience is soon ending.
Dose-Effect Relationship . More than two decades ago, an infl uential psychotherapy review article reported that by eight sessions of psycho-therapy, approximately one-half of patients show a measureable outcome improvement, and that by 26 sessions, this number increases to 75 % (Howard, Kopta, Krause, & Orlinksy, 1986 ).
Is there an equivalent dose-response relationship for gratitude interventions? Interventions have asked people to keep gratitude journals every day to a few times a week to once a week for 10 weeks. While some differences have been reported across these studies, an insuffi cient number of trials have yet to be conducted such that recommendations could be made with confi -dence. The defi nition of a dose itself is up for debate. Should a dose be considered a single session of writing in a gratitude journal? Should a minimum time be set for participants to write in their journals each session? We would expect that the greater the degree of elaboration over a simple listing or counting of blessings, the greater would be the potential payoff. But a systematic comparison of the relevant variables that “gratitude dosages” vary on has yet to be conducted.
Gender . Gender may be another critical indi-vidual factor affecting the outcomes of interven-tion studies. Given the interpersonal correlates and interdependent nature of gratitude, women might have an edge over men in extracting ben-efi ts from gratitude interventions. In fact, recent studies have demonstrated signifi cant gender differences in gratitude (Kashdan et al., 2009 ; Watkins et al., 2003 ). However, in another recent study by Froh et al. ( 2009 ), the usual trend of gender differences couldn’t be captured in an adolescent sample. Even though adolescent girls reported more gratitude, adolescent boys appeared to derive more social benefi ts from gratitude for whom a stronger relationship between gratitude and family support was found.
As an extension of possible gender differences in gratitude, it would be compelling to examine the contribution of gratitude in romantic relation-ships. Dyadic interventions involving grateful activities might foster higher-quality relation-ships. For example, a recent study examined the infl uence of attachment orientations on grati-tude in new marital relationships over a period of 21 days (Mikulincer et al., 2006 ). Daily feel-ings of gratitude for the partner were related to appraisals of partner’s behavior (i.e., the higher the level of partner’s perceived positive behavior, the greater the gratitude). For both partners, per-ceived positive behavior by the partner toward the self on one day was signifi cantly associated with greater gratitude toward the partner on that same day. Moreover, in the same study, attach-ment avoidance was found to be associated with lower feelings of gratitude for the partner across the 21 days. However, most interestingly, only
1 the husband’s avoidance orientation moderated the relationship between the perceived partner’s behavior and feelings of gratitude (i.e., avoidant husbands reported lower gratitude even on days when they appraised their wife’s behaviors to be highly positive). As an extension of these fi nd-ings, future studies can examine if and why grat-itude has the potential of contributing more to the relationship quality for women, compared to men. Given the interdependent and interper-sonal nature of gratitude, women might be more susceptible toward perceiving a partner’s positive behaviors as gifts and extract more benefi ts from gratitude in their romantic relationships. Women are expected to expand their caretaking and rela-tional roles, whereas men are expected to focus their emotional expression on the expansion and pursuit of power and status (Brody, 1997 , 1999 ; Stoppard & Gruchy, 1993 ). Therefore, seeking more of a “provider’s” role in marital relation-ships, gratitude may trigger feelings of vulnera-bility and weakness for men, which they may perceive to be harmful to their masculinity and social standing (Levant & Kopecky, 1995 ). As a result, men might extract fewer benefi ts from gratitude to enhance their relationship quality.
Enhancing retention in self-guided programs. Gratitude interventions may increase compli-ance with and the possible success of self-guided therapies in the realms of health management. Given that grateful people tend to take better care of their health, would an intervention to increase gratitude lead a person to stick with their commitments say to reduce weight, eat more nutritionally, exercise, or reduce smoking? Attrition is a major problem, especially in Internet interventions (Christensen, Griffi ths, Mackinnon, & Brittliffe, 2006 ). A recent study found that retention in a two-week intervention for depressed persons was signifi cantly higher for those who completed gratitude journals com-pared to recording automatic thoughts (Geraghty, Wood, & Hyland, 2010 ).
Gratitude was effective in both reducing drop-out and lowering depression scores, and increased retention by 12 % over those recording daily thoughts.
The Uniqueness of Gratitude Interventions
An important issue to be addressed in future research concerns the unique contributions that gratitude interventions make to well-being out-comes that distinguish them, say from related
positive psychology interventions. The unique-ness of these interventions could be compared with other positive psychological constructs such as forgiveness and hope, both of which have been shown to contribute to well-being (Bono, McCullough, & Root, 2008 ; Snyder, Rand, & Sigmon, 2002 ). What is different about grati-tude? First, the underlying prosocial and rela-tional nature of gratitude, subsequently leading to strengthened social bonds, might facilitate unique pathways to well-being. Second, grati-tude has a fulfi llment aspect to it, unlike hope, that might facilitate extraction of benefi ts via mindful appreciation of both present and past received benefi ts. For example, given that hope is a positive motivational state driven by goal-di-rected energy and planning toward reaching future goal(s) (Snyder, 2000 ), it probably reaches its fruition only in a prospective fashion in the absence of a desired goal — a goal that may or may not be attained. Gratitude has also been shown to be activated strongly by fi rst focusing on absence of benefi ts (Koo et al., 2008 ). However, unlike hope, gratitude is almost always felt in retrospection, thereby facilitating a positive cog-nitive framework toward an already present benefi t. Furthermore, gratitude may be extracted from immediate or present life circumstances (e.g., “I am grateful for all the benefi ts that I received today”), and also from the past (e.g., “I am grateful for the love and support that I received when I was sick two years back”), pro-moting more expanded positive emotional expe-rience. Besides the retrospective recognition of benefi ts, gratitude also drives future prosocial motivations (e.g., “I want to return benefi ts to others who have helped me”).
Forgiveness is a motivational and emotional transformation whereby a person relinquishes feelings of past hurts and engages in construc-tive thoughts and possibly conciliatory actions toward the person who has hurt him or her (McCullough, Worthington, & Rachal, 1997 ). Given the psychological hurdles preceding for-giveness, such as overcoming past hurts, psycho-logical well-being via forgiveness might be attained more gradually compared to gratitude.
In our laboratory, we recently compared grati-tude with these two other positive psychological interventions and a control condition. Online interventions for gratitude, forgiveness, and hope were developed and implemented daily over a two-week period. Participants were randomly assigned to one of four conditions — the grati-tude, forgiveness, hope, or control conditions.
1 In the gratitude condition, participants were asked to focus and engage grateful thoughts and feelings toward multiple gifts received each day. In the forgiveness condition the participants were asked to engage in benefi t fi nding and for-giving thoughts toward an offender each day. In the hope condition, participants were asked each day to write about a goal that they hope to pursue in the future. The control group was asked to list activities attended each day over the two weeks. The four groups also reported their daily emo-tions and a daily checklist of spiritual, material-istic, prosocial, and grateful activities.
Compared to men, women in all three inter-vention conditions reported greater levels of both trait and state gratitude. More specifi cally, for the gratitude composite variable (i.e., appre-ciative, thankful, grateful) across the 14 days, gender differences were observed most strongly in the gratitude intervention condition. Women had higher levels of grateful emotions in the gratitude condition, indicating that women were more sensitive to the gratitude intervention. Women also reported higher levels of positive affect in the gratitude condition, compared to men (Mishra & Emmons, 2009 ). These fi ndings resonate well with the gender differences fi nd-ings revealed in recent studies (see Kashdan et al 2009 ; Watkins et al., 2003 ). As discussed earlier, the gender differences in gratitude may be explained by the greater susceptibility of women to extract benefi ts from gratitude because of its utility as an interpersonal emotion. Examining gender differences in gratitude may also lead to further insight into the possibility of gender-specifi c gratitude interventions that may applied in future studies.
Conclusion
The science of gratitude is young. Even so, con-siderable progress has already been made in understanding how both state and trait gratitude are conducive to well-being. Of the 10 hypothe-ses advanced in this chapter, considerable empiri-cal support was found for the majority of them. Some of these have been the object of more research than others, so it may be premature to suggest that a comprehensive evaluation of each has been accomplished. One conclusion that we can draw with confi dence is that relation between gratitude and well-being is multiply determined. In particular, we found considerable evidence that gratitude builds social resources by
strengthening relationships and promoting prosocial actions. It is also likely that these 10 hypotheses do not exhaust the possible ways in which gratitude impacts well-being, and future research will undoubtedly uncover addi-tional mechanisms. Toward that end, we offered some suggestions for the design of future studies that will hopefully continue to illuminate the richness and complexity of this social emotion and optimize the practice of gratitude for pro-moting harmonious intrapsychic and interper-sonal functioning.
References
Adler , M. G. , & Fagley , N. S. ( 2005 ). Appreciation: Individual differences in fi nding value and mean-ing as a unique predictor of subjective well-being . Journal of Personality , 73 , 79 – 114 .
Algoe , S. B. , Haidt , J. , & Gable , S. L. ( 2008 ). Beyond reciprocity: Gratitude and relationships in every-day life . Emotion , 8 , 425 – 429 .
Bar-Anan , Wilson , T. D. , & Gilbert D. T. ( 2009 ). The feeling of uncertainty intensifi es affective reac-tions . Emotion , 9 , 123 – 127 .
Bartlett , M.Y. , & DeSteno , D. ( 2006 ). Gratitude and prosocial behavior: Helping when it costs you . Psychological Science , 17 , 319 – 325 .
Belk , R. W. ( 1985 ). Materialism: Trait aspects of living in the material world . Journal of Consumer Research , 12 , 265 – 280 .
Bilsky , W. , & Schwartz , S. H. ( 1994 ). Values and personality . European Journal of Personality , 8 , 163 – 181 .
Bono , G. , Emmons , R. A. , & McCullough , M. E. ( 2004 ). Gratitude in practice and the practice of gratitude . In P. A. Linley and S. Joseph (Eds.), Positive psychology in practice (pp. 464 – 481 ). New York : Wiley .
Bono , G. , McCullough , M. E. , & Root , L. M. ( 2008 ). Forgiveness, feeling connected to others, and well-being: Two longitudinal studies . Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin , 34 , 182 – 195 .
Brody , L. R. ( 1999 ). Gender, emotion, and the family . Cambridge : Harvard University Press .
Brody , L. R. ( 1997 ). Gender and emotion: Beyond stereotypes . Journal of Social Issues , 53 , 369 – 394 .
Carman , J. B. , & Streng , F. J. (Eds.) ( 1989 ). Spoken and unspoken thanks: Some comparative sound-ings . Cambridge, MA : Harvard University Press .
Christensen , H. , Griffi ths , K. M. , Mackinnon , A. J. , & Brittliffe , K. ( 2006 ). Online randomized con-trolled trial of brief and full cognitive behaviour
1 therapy for depression . Psychological Medicine , 36 , 1737 – 1746 .
Dahua , W. , Yan , T. , & Liqing , Z. ( 2004 ). Inner-mechanisms between intergenerational social support and subjective well-being of the elderly . Acta Psychologica Sinica , 36 , 78 – 82 .
Denny , K. G. , & Steiner , H. ( 2009 ). External and internal factors infl uencing happiness in elite collegiate athletes . Child Psychiatry and Human Development , 40 , 55 – 72 .
Emmons , R. A. ( 1999 ). Religion in the psychology of personality: An introduction . Journal of Personality , 67 , 873 – 888 .
Emmons , R. A. , & Crumpler , C. A. ( 2000 ). Gratitude as a human strength: Appraising the evidence . Journal of Social and Clinical Psychology , 19 , 56 – 67 .
Emmons , R. A. , & Kneezel , T. E. ( 2005 ). Giving thanks: Spiritual and religious correlates of grati-tude . Journal of Psychology and Christianity , 24 , 140 – 148 .
Emmons , R. A. , & McCullough , M. E. (Eds.). ( 2004 ) The psychology of gratitude . New York : Oxford University Press .
Emmons , R. A. , & McCullough , M. E. ( 2003 ). Counting blessings versus burdens: An experi-mental investigation of gratitude and subjective well-being in daily life . Journal of Personality and Social Psychology , 84 , 377 – 389 .
Emmons , R. A. , McCullough , M. E. , & Tsang , J. ( 2003 ). The assessment of gratitude . In S. J. Lopez & C. R. Snyder (Eds.), Positive psychological assessment: A handbook of models and measures (pp. 327 – 341 ). Washington, DC : American Psychological Association .
Fredrickson , B. L. ( 2004 ). Gratitude like other posi-tive emotions, broaden and builds . In R. A. Emmons & M. E. McCullough (Eds.), The psy-chology of gratitude (pp. 145 – 166 ). New York : Oxford University Press .
Fredrickson , B. L , Tugade , M. M. , Waugh , C. E. , & Larkin , G. R. ( 2003 ). What good are positive emotions in crisis? A prospective study of resil-ience and emotions following the terrorist attacks on the United States on September 11th, 2001 . Journal of Personality and Social Psychology , 84 , 365 – 376 .
Frisch , M. B. ( 2006 ). Quality of life therapy: Applying a life satisfaction approach to positive psychology and cognitive therapy . New York : Wiley .
Froh , J. J. , Emmons , R. A. , Card , N. A. , Bono , G. , & Wilson , J. A . ( in press ). Gratitude and the reduced costs of materialism in adolescents . Journal of Happiness Studies .
Froh , J. J. , Kashdan , T. B. , Ozimkowski , K. M. , & Miller , N. ( 2009 ). Who benefi ts the most from a gratitude intervention in children and adoles-cents? Examining positive affect as a moderator . The Journal of Positive Psychology . 4 , 408 – 422 .
Froh , J. J. , Sefi ck , W. J. , & Emmons , R. A. ( 2008 ). Counting blessings in early adolescents: An experimental study of gratitude and subjective well-being . Journal of School Psychology , 46 , 213 – 233 .
Froh , J. J. , Wajsblat , L. , & Ubertini , L. ( 2008 , November ). Gratitude’s role in promoting fl our-ishing and inhibiting languishing: Using positive psychology to complement clinical practice . Poster session presented at the Association for Behavioral and Cognitive Therapies Annual Convention , Orlando, FL .
Froh , J. J. , Yurkewicz , C. , & Kashdan , T. B. ( 2009 ). Gratitude and subjective well-being in early ado-lescence: Examining gender differences . Journal of Adolescence , 32 , 633 – 650 .
Ger , G. , & Belk , R. W. ( 1996 ). Cross-cultural differ-ences in materialism . Journal of Economic Psychology , 17 , 55 – 77 .
Geraghty , A.W.A. , Wood , A.M. , & Hyland , M.E. ( 2010 ). Attrition from self-directed interven-tions: Investigating the relationship between psychological predictors, intervention content, and dropout from a body dissatisfaction intervention . Social Science and Medicine , 71 , 30 – 37 .
Gino , F. , & Schweitzer , M. ( 2008 ). Blinded by anger or feeling the love: How emotions infl uence advice taking . Journal of Applied Psychology , 93 , 1165 – 1173 .
Howard , K. I. , Kopta , S. M. , Krause , S. M. , & Orlinsky , D. E. ( 1986 ). The dose-effect relation-ship in psychotherapy . American Psychologist , 41 , 159 – 164 .
Isenberg , C. ( 2008 ). An examination of regret as expressed in the life refl ections of older adults: Predictors of regret intensity and frequency, and association with well-being . Dissertation Abstracts International , 69 , 4 – B , 2653 .
Kashdan , T. B. , & Breen , W. E. ( 2007 ). Materialism and diminished well-being: Experiential avoid-ance as a mediating mechanism . Journal of Social and Clinical Psychology , 26 , 521 – 539 .
Kashdan , T. B. , Mishra , A. , Breen , W. E. , & Froh , J. J. ( 2009 ). Gender differences in gratitude: Examining appraisals, narratives, the willingness to express emotions, and changes in psychologi-cal needs . Journal of Personality , 77 , 691 – 730 .
Kashdan , T. B. , Uswatte , G. , & Julian , T. ( 2006 ). Gratitude and hedonic and eudaimonic well-being
1 in Vietnam War veterans . Behavior Research and Therapy , 44 , 177 – 199 .
Kasser , T. ( 2002 ). The high price of materialism . Cambridge, MA : MIT Press .
Kasser , T. , & Kanner , A. D. (Eds.) ( 2003 ). Psychology and consumer culture: The struggle for a good life in a materialistic world . Washington DC : American Psychological Association .
Kasser , T. , & Ryan , R. M. ( 1993 ). A dark side of the American dream: Correlates of fi nancial success as a central life aspiration . Journal of Personality and Social Psychology , 65 , 410 – 422 .
Koo , M. , Algoe , S. B. , Wilson , T. D. , & Gilbert , D. T. ( 2008 ). It’s a wonderful life: Mentally subtract-ing positive events improves people’s affective states, contrary to their affective forecasts . Journal of Personality and Social Psychology , 95 , 1217 – 1224 .
Krause , N. ( 2006 ). Gratitude toward God, stress, and health in late life . Research on Aging , 28 , 163 – 183 .
Kurtz , J. L. ( 2008 ). Looking to the future to appreci-ate the present: The benefi ts of perceived temporal scarcity . Psychological Science , 19 , 1238 – 1241 .
Landman , J. ( 1993 ). Regret: The persistence of the possible . New York : Oxford University Press .
Lawler , E. J. ( 2001 ). An affect theory of social exchange . American Journal of Sociology , 107 , 321 – 352 .
Levant , R. F. , & Kopecky , G. ( 1995 ). Masculinity, reconstructed . New York : Dutton .
Liamputtong , P. , Yimyam , S. , Parisunyakul , S. , Baosoung , C. , & Sansiriphun , N. ( 2004 ). When I become a mother! Discourses of motherhood among northern Thai women . Women’s Studies International Forum , 27 , 589 – 601 .
Lupfer , M. B. , De Paola , S. J. , Brock , K. F. , & Clement , L. ( 1994 ). Making secular and religious attribu-tions: The availability hypothesis revisited . Journal for the Scientifi c Study of Religion , 33 , 162 – 171 .
Lupfer , M. B. , Tolliver , D. , & Jackson , M. ( 1996 ). Explaining life-altering occurrences: A test of the “god-of-the-gaps” hypothesis . Journal for the Scientifi c Study of Religion , 35 , 379 – 391 .
Lyubomirsky , S. , Sheldon , K. M. , & Schkade , D. ( 2005 ). Pursuing happiness: The architecture of sustainable change . Review of General Psychology , 9 , 111 – 131 .
Lyubomirsky , S. Tkach , C. , & DiMatteo , R. M. ( 2006 ). What are the differences between happi-ness and self-esteem . Social Indicators Research , 78 , 363 – 404 .
McCraty , R. , & Childre , D. ( 2004 ). The grateful heart: The psychophysiology of appreciation .
In R. A. Emmons & M. E. McCullough (Eds.), The psychology of gratitude (pp. 230 – 255 ). New York : Oxford University Press .
McCullough , M. E. , Emmons , R. A. , & Tsang , Jo-Ann ( 2002 ). The grateful disposition: A con-ceptual and empirical topography . Journal of Personality and Social Psychology , 82 , 112 – 127 .
McCullough , M. E. , Kilpatrick , S. D. , Emmons , R. A. , & Larson , D. B. ( 2001 ). Is gratitude a moral affect? Psychological Bulletin , 127 , 249 – 266 .
McCullough , M. E. , Kimeldorf , M. B. , & Cohen , A. D. ( 2008 ). An adaptation for altruism? The social causes, social effects, and social evolution of gratitude . Current Directions in Psychological Science , 17 , 281 – 285 .
McCullough , M. E. , Tsang , J. , & Emmons , R. A. ( 2004 ). Gratitude in intermediate affective terrain: Links of grateful moods to individual differences and daily emotional experience . Journal of Personality and Social Psychology , 86 , 295 – 309 .
McCullough , M. E. , Worthington , E. L. , & Rachal , K. C. ( 1997 ). Interpersonal forgiving in close relationships . Journal of Personality and Social Psychology , 73 , 321 – 336 .
Mikulincer , M. , Shaver , P. R. , & Slav , K. ( 2006 ). Attachment, mental representations of others, and interpersonal gratitude and forgiveness within romantic relationships . In M. Mikulincer & G. S. Goodman (Eds.), Dynamics of romantic love (pp. 191 – 215 ). New York : Guilford .
Mishra , A. , & Emmons , R. A. ( 2009 , June ). Sex dif-ferences in positive psychology interventions: Comparing gratitude, forgiveness, hope . Poster presented at the First World Congress on Positive Psychology, Philadelphia, PA .
Nowak , M. A. , & Roch , S. ( 2007 ). Upstream reci-procity and the evolution of gratitude . Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences , 274 , 605 – 610 .
Orr , A. , Willis , S. , Holmes , M. , Britton , P. , & Orr , D. ( 2007 ). Living with a kidney transplant . Journal of Health Psychology , 12 , 653 – 662 .
Parrott , W. G. , & Smith , R. H. ( 1993 ). Distinguishing the experiences of envy and jealousy . Journal of Personality and Social Psychology , 64 , 906 – 920 .
Peterson , C. , Park , N. , Pole , N. , D’Andrea , W. , & Seligman , M. E. P. ( 2008 ). Strengths of character and posttraumatic growth . Journal of Traumatic Stress , 21 , 214 – 217 .
Peterson , C. , & Seligman , M. E. P. (Eds.) ( 2004 ). Character strengths and virtues: A handbook of classifi cation . Washington DC: American Psychological Association. New York : Oxford University Press .
1 Polak , E. , & McCullough , M. E. ( 2006 ). Is gratitude an alternative to materialism? Journal of Happiness Studies , 7 , 343 – 360 .
Richins , M. L. , & Dawson , S. ( 1992 ). A consumer values orientation for materialism and its mea-surement: Scale development and validation . Journal of Consumer Research , 19 , 303 – 316 .
Roberts , R. C. ( 2004 ). The blessings of gratitude: A conceptual analysis . In R. A. Emmons & M. E. McCullough (Eds.), The psychology of gratitude (pp. 58 – 78 ). New York : Oxford University Press .
Rosenberg , E. L. ( 1998 ). Levels of analysis and the organization of affect . Review of General Psychology , 2 , 247 – 270 .
Ross , M. ( 1989 ). Relation of implicit theories to the construction of personal histories . Psychological Review , 96 , 341 – 357 .
Saucier , G. , & Goldberg , L. R. ( 1998 ). What is beyond the Big Five? Journal of Personality , 66 , 495 – 524 .
Seligman , M. E. P. , Steen , T. A. , Park , N. , & Peterson , C. ( 2005 ). Positive psychology progress: Empirical validation of interventions . American Psychologist , 60 , 410 – 421 .
Sheldon , K. M. , & Kasser , T. ( 1995 ). Coherence and congruence: Two aspects of personality integra-tion . Journal of Personality and Social Psychology , 68 , 531 543 .
Shipon , R. W. ( 2007 ). Gratitude: Effect on perspec-tives and blood pressure of inner-city African-American hypertensive patients . Dissertation Abstracts International: Section B: The Sciences and Engineering , 68 (3–B) , 1977 .
Smith R. H. , & Kim S. H. ( 2007 ). Comprehending envy . Psychological Bulletin , 133 , 46 – 64 .
Smith , R. H. , Parrott , W. G , Diener , E. , Hoyle , R. H. , & Kim , S. H. ( 1999 ). Dispositional envy . Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin , 25 , 1007 – 1020 .
Smith , R. H. , Turner , T. , Leach , C. , Garonzik , R. , Urch-Druskat , V. , & Weston , C. M. ( 1996 ). Envy and schadenfreude . Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin , 22 , 158 – 168 .
Snyder , C. R. ( 2000 ). Hypothesis: There is hope . In C. R. Snyder (Ed.), Handbook of hope: Theories, measures, and applications (pp. 3 – 21 ). Orlando, FL : Academic Press .
Snyder , C. R. , Rand , K. L. , & Sigmon , D. R. ( 2002 ). Hope theory: A member of the positive psychol-ogy family . Handbook of positive psychology (pp. 257 – 276 ). New York : Oxford University Press .
Sommers , S. , & Kosmitzki , C. ( 1988 ). Emotion and social context: An American–German compari-son . British Journal of Social Psychology , 27 , 35 – 49 .
Steen , T. A. , Kachorek , L. V. , & Peterson , C. ( 2003 ). Character strengths among youth . Journal of Youth and Adolescence , 32 , 5 – 16 .
Stoppard , J. M. , & Gruchy , C. ( 1993 ). Gender, con-text, and expression of positive emotion . Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin , 19 , 143 – 150 .
Trivers , R. L. ( 1971 ). The evolution of reciprocal altruism . The Quarterly Review of Biology , 46 , 35 – 57 .
Vernon , L. L. , Dillon , J. M. , & Steiner , A. R. W. ( 2009 ). Proactive coping, gratitude, and posttrau-matic stress disorder in college women . Anxiety , Stress , & Coping , 22 , 117 – 127 .
Walker , S. S. , & Schimmack , U. ( 2008 ). Validity of a happiness implicit association test as a measure of subjective wellbeing . Journal of Research in Personality , 42 , 490 – 497 .
Watkins , P. C. ( 2000 , August ). Gratitude and depres-sion: How a human strength might mitigate human adversity . Paper presented at the 109th Annual Convention of the American Psychological Association, San Francisco, CA .
Watkins , P. C. , Cruz , L. , Holben , H. , & Kolts , R. L. ( 2008 ). Taking care of business? Grateful pro-cessing of unpleasant memories . The Journal of Positive Psychology , 3 , 87 – 99 .
Watkins , P. C. , Grimm , D. L. , & Hailu , L. ( 1998 , June ). Counting your blessings: Grateful indi-viduals recall more positive memories . Presented at the 11th Annual Convention of the American Psychological Society, Denver, CO .
Watkins , P. C. , Grimm , D. L. , & Kolts , R. ( 2004 ). Counting your blessings: Positive memories among grateful persons . Current Psychology , 23 , 52 – 67 .
Watkins , P. C. , Scheer , J. , Ovnicek , M. , & Kolts , R. ( 2006 ). The debt of gratitude: Dissociating grati-tude and indebtedness . Cognition and Emotion , 20 , 217 – 241 .
Watkins , P. C. , Woodward , K. , Stone , T. , & Kolts , R. L. ( 2003 ). Gratitude and happiness: Development of a measure of gratitude, and relationships with subjective well-being . Social Behavior and Personality , 31 , 431 – 452 .
Wood , A. M. , Joseph , S. , & Linley , P. A. ( 2007 ). Coping style as a psychological resource of grateful people . Journal of Social & Clinical Psychology , 26 , 1076 – 1093 .
Wood , A. M. , Joseph , S. , Lloyd , J. , & Atkins , S. ( 2009 ). Gratitude infl uences sleep through the
